Remember to keep the BIOS passwd-protected, and not have
any removable media (A:, CDROM) in the boot-path.

Make as much as possible mountable read-only. This
should be doable with /usr with little or no modification.
It could almost be done with root, except things need to
mount on it. The best way to do this is with NIS / NFS, so
that a cluster of diskless computers shares network access
to a remote filesystem.

For a standalone machine, there's a way to do
this by making all the partitions except for /var read-only,
then disabling a lot of things that need to write to the
disk and symlinking everything essential to the /var
partition.

Create a restricted ~cafe account. Configure your *DM
(XDM, KDM, GDM, whatever) for autologin to ~cafe.
For the public login, make as much read-only as possible.
One
way to do this is chmod -R a-w ~cafe, and then see what
breaks.

Enable quotas. This will prevent .netscape/cache from
eating anything but the ~cafe dir.

Pick up a journaling FS when convenient.

Jamie Zawinski used diskless terminals and NIS/NFS in his
nightclub for a setup so bombproof, you could even UNPLUG
'EM without halting the system and they don't have to fsck,
since they get all their important files over the network.

It's not perfect, I'll concede that. There's still no flashy
graphic of a marauding lizard. But it serves its purpose: to
occupy the user's attention for 45 seconds while Mozilla
loads. Their instinct will be to move the mouse and click on
the "OK" button, just to send the window away.

Even though the button serves no other purpose than to close
the window, it fills a very important role in the psychology
of the GUI environment: it gives an impatient Microserf
something to look at while the program loads.

I've polled enough of the Cafe computer users here to know
that they share the misapprehension that apps launch slower
on Linux. This is untrue, as anyone with a stopwatch
recording launch times for Windows and Mac apps can attest.
The only difference is that many Linux apps are totally
lacking in application feedback, making the percieved load
time much longer.

The gtk-shell splash scripts (for Netscape, Galeon and
Mozilla) on the AS220 Cafe Freebox will serve the purpose
for now. Maybe I'll even learn how to code a meaningless
"thermometer" display (you know, like rpm -ivh only
slicker) and include a rampaging Giant lizard logo.

But it would be even nicer if the mozilla -splash flag
worked in the next release. Even though it may seem like
window dressing, it should actually be a priority.

Hrm. Well, I'm not against having a splash
screen for mozilla but it
was voted down pretty hard by the community.
Plus, it added some
nasty dependencies in the wrong places.

As for a SIGTERM in the launcher script I
think that's a bad idea. We
need to fix it the right way with lock files
and timeouts. Some of that
means we need to change things in mozilla but
that's OK IMHO. It's
not more than a few days work but it's still
pretty low on my list of
things to do.

Well, I've been thinking pretty hard about this, and I'm
surprised that the "mozilla -splash" flag was "voted down
... by the community." It makes me wonder whether
the "community" that Chris is referring to here has had much
experience with public, shared terminals and donated
hardware. It seems like most Mozilla developers probably
have their own computers which would blow away the
dual-P166, 64MB SDRAM Cafe Freebox -- and they don't have to
worry about the 45-second delay that the Cafe User
experiences while waiting for Netscape or Mozilla to load.

I think it's also generally true that Linux power users who
actually know what's happening when they click on a button
are more inclined to wait a minute than the Windoze-trained,
point-and-drool crowd, who expect instant feedback from
their
GUI. Unfortunately, 90% of the folks who use my GNOME
install are the impatient sort.

In the context of the Cafe, a tcl / wish wrapper that threw
a little logo on the screen would be an easy enough hack.
But it would be nice if I had access to a bigger lizard logo
than just the GNOME panel icon. I should ask Mozilla logo
designer Shepard
Fairey whether he'd like to design a new logo for
Mozilla's splash screen. Then again, I'm not exactly
authorized to spend Mozilla's money hiring graphic designers
just because they happen to be bold, iconoclastic young
mavericks. :^D

Of course, Chris is also correct when he points out that
the SIGTERM is no solution to a problem which should really
be solved by lock files and timeouts. Hmm, the "led" script
I use to lock and edit dist files for lists does that very
thing, and I've already seen the source code for that. Maybe
that's what I ought to base my wrapper scripts on.

Even though I committed a major faux pas by mass-mailing all
the Mozilla developers instead of checking their online help
or lurking in the shadows of some listserv or irc #mozilla
channel, Christopher
Blizzard was open enough to actually take the time to
thoughtfully respond to my query. This man deeply cares
about Mozilla, it is obvious, or else he wouldn't have
bothered to respond so personally to one of the myriad tiny
cyber-gnats buzzing around his personal zillasphere.

I already moderated him as Master, so now I wish there was a
higher compliment I could pay him.

My name's Matt Obert, and I maintain a Freebox in the
AS220 Cafe in Providence, RI. It defaults to GNOME and
currently
has three browsers installed: Navigator, Mozilla and Galeon.

Keepin' it short: there has been a problem with lack
of application feedback. The Cafe User gets impatient while
waiting for their browser to load, and generally hits the
Launcher
again several times, which slows everything down even
further.

I've hacked this so that the launcher button issues a
SIGTERM before booting, but it would be even better if
Mozilla had a splash screen with the lizard logo (designed,
by the
way, by my good friend Shepard Fairey!) I'm not asking you
to
code it by yourself or anything, but if you could spread the
word among Mozilla developers, that would be much
appreciated.

Hrm. Well, I'm not against having a splash screen for
mozilla but it was voted
down pretty hard by the community. Plus, it added some
nasty dependencies in
the wrong places.

As for a SIGTERM in the launcher script I think that's a bad
idea. We need to
fix it the right way with lock files and timeouts. Some of
that means we need
to change things in mozilla but that's OK IMHO. It's not
more than a few days
work but it's still pretty low on my list of things to do.

Most developers would object to being personally contacted
about this
sort of thing - reactions would range from your email being
deleted
without a response to massive flamage.

It would be much better for you to first read the mailing
list archive
for whatever mozilla mailing list is appropriate for this,
to make sure
this hasn't already been addressed. For good measure, check
the FAQ and
other parts of the web site. If that doesn't turn anything
up, post to
the mailing list. But please don't send private email to the
developers - that would defeat the purposes of the mailing
list (to scale
well and to help the next guy who has the same question).

It looks like they use newsgroups instead of mailing lists:

http://www.mozilla.org/community.html

You also need to check the bug tracking system (Bugzilla) to see
if 1) a bug has been reported and 2) where the developers
are at in
terms of dealing with the bug.

Here is the link for the bug tracking system:

http://www.mozilla.org/bugs/
I just did a quick search, and here is the bug you want:

http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=27446

It appears that they are aware of the bug, it has been
assigned, and
someone is working on it. There is a duplicate of this bug at:

http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=69598

But you can always double-check the newsgroups to see if
it's been
talked about lately.

My name's Matt Obert, and I maintain a Freebox in the
AS220 Cafe in Providence, RI. It defaults to GNOME and
currently has three browsers installed: Navigator, Mozilla
and Galeon.

Keepin' it short: there has been a problem with lack of
application feedback. The Cafe User gets impatient while
waiting for their browser to load, and generally hits the
Launcher again several times, which slows everything down
even further.

I've hacked this so that the launcher button issues a
SIGTERM before booting, but it would be even better if
Mozilla had a splash screen with the lizard logo (designed,
by the way, buy my good friend Shepard Fairey!) I'm not
asking you to code it by yourself or anything, but if you
could spread the word among Mozilla developers, that would
be much appreciated.

Thank you for your patience. If you're still interested
in reading more, check out my diary at:

I took Jim's advice and added the killall line to the
properties in the GNOME panel launchers for all three
browsers. A kludge, but an effective one. The "Cafe User"
will learn very quickly to open a new browser window without
clicking on the launcher again, because the launcher button
will crash the app dramatically before starting a new
instance.

I'm still thinking about the splash screen idea. I think I
could write a tcl wrapper that just threw up a little window
with a button that said, "Loading Mozilla, eh?" and give the
person some instant feedback on this. Of course, it would be
nicer if I could get the lizard logo in there, since it was
designed by a good friend of mine (Shepard Fairey, of "Andre
the Giant has a Posse" notoriety.) And it would be even
nicer if we could include one of those silly animated
thermometers that gradually changes color from left to right
as the app loads, since the Windoze-trained "Cafe User"
loves those little things. Unfortunately, I am not up to the
challenge just yet. I'll be working on my quick-and-dirty
version in the meantime.